THE THREE EVILS

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 September 1923, Page 5

THE THREE EVILS

IS GERMANY DOOMED? RHINELAND PREDICTIONS. (“Times” Serwce.) LONDON, September 18. The “Times’s” Cologne correspondent says : There is a general impression in Rnineland that the Franco-German pourparlers will come to nothing. It is on-jy a matter of days when Berlin’s supply of money will cease, and passive resistance collapse automatically, not because the workers are mere pocket patriots, but they must be fed and will be forced to earn their bread by serving the invader. The alternative thereto is rioting and plundering. What will happen thereafter is a query. There are three possible alternatives : first, a Franco-Belgian economic political alliance based on German vassalage. Secondly, a German declaration' that the invasion of the Ruhr is illegal, constituting a state of war and conferring upon I rance and Belgium the responsibility for the food supply, telegraphic, railway and other communications. In this case there would not be armed German resistance, the inhabitants being under martial law, and must obey French orders. The Germans advocating this alternative say that it is Germany’s only chance. She is doomed anyway; let her sink with her colours nailed to the mast. Thirdly, Germany can capitulate purely and simply, whereafter the Reich will break up, civil war will ensue an,d there will be a Communist triumph, a Fascist reaction, the French suppression of disorders with a firm hand, and eventually the establishment of a Rhenish-Westphalian Republic. FOOD RIOTS RESUMED. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association) BERLIN, September 17. Demonstrations against the high food prices continue in the province of Brandenburge, and resulted in a conflict at Sorau between the police and the demonstrators, in which twelve of the latter were killed and fifteen wounded. .MARK’S LATEST RECORD. LONDON, September 18. The German mark reached the preposterous level of over one thousand million to the pound. USE OF BLACK TROOFS. REV. J. NORTH’S COMMENTS. ('Special to “Star ”) CHRISTCHURCH, September 18. “In my opinion if the occupation of the Ruhr had been conducted by white troops entirely, the specially rancorous feeling now existing among the population would never have arisen,” declared the Rev. J. J. North, the well-known Baptist Minister and prohibition advocate, who returned to Christchurch this morning, aften an eleven months’ tour of the world in the course of some remarks on the French occupation of the Ruhr to a “Star” representative to-day.

“When in Scandinavia in July to attend the Congress of the Baptist World Alliance, at which twenty-seven different nations were represented, I bad the opportunity of discovering to some extent Swedish sentiment in regard to the Ruhr and its problems,” said Mr. North. “I found the abstract question of reparations and security quite secondary there to the very strong and angry feeling in relation to the presence, of black troops in the occupied areas. A well-travel-led Swedish citizen told me that the beautiful town of Weisbaden is occupied 'by Sene&ap.ese tr/qopsl, and that conditions <>f humiliation and of immorality were rampant in consequence, and in the last degree were appalling. A Singalese I myself saw in France will bear out the suggestion. A 6ft 2in Negro lifted from his ordinary African surroundings dressed in grey and armed with a musket is •■he most unpleasant sort of person you could meet in a long day’s march. It is no less than appalling that a European community should be compelled to submit to (occupation by battalions of such men. My Swedish ’nformant, in whom I have the utmost confidence, told me that the townspeople ..have completely Jost heart. The number of German women attached to these black troops was exceptionally shocking. In a few months this would result in the entire moral collapse of the district.”

“This use of black troops in the Ruhr looks like a scandal of the largest magnitude,” continued Mr. North,

“and well wishers of France cannot look other than with eyes of apprehension towards the view at the present time, when she, with her stagnant population supports her colours with 700,000 black bayonets.”